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February 17, 2008<\/strong><\/p>\n David Brubacher<\/strong><\/p>\n Text:<\/strong><\/p>\n Genesis 12:1-4a<\/strong><\/p>\n John 3:1-17<\/strong><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Introduction:\u00a0\u00a0 <\/strong>Learning to ride a bicycle was not easy for me. I was about eleven by the time I finally learned to ride and had my own bike. Part of the problem was that there were no bikes around our place other than the old one in the back of my grandfather\u2019s shed that had not been ridden for years.<\/p>\n Not having a bike, however, was not the biggest problem. Last Sunday you may have noticed that I was quite concerned about getting the worship leading right my first time around. I have tended to be hesitant to try something unless I am sure I can do it right. So even though my neighbourhood friends had bikes I never ventured to ride them for fear I would not get it right.<\/p>\n One Sunday we were visiting at another friend\u2019s farm. He had a nice bicycle exactly my size. I still don\u2019t know what got into me but I got on the bicycle and began to ride down a slight slope in the drive way and even managed to negotiate a turn at the end. For the rest of the afternoon you could not get me off that bicycle. I soon had my own bike. Being able to go places opened a whole new world for me.<\/p>\n As I reflect, my journey of coming to faith was similar. I grew up in a more conservative Mennonite tradition. Until I was fifteen, we belonged to the group of Waterloo County Mennonites that drives black cars. As a child it seemed to me that being a good Christian was about obeying the rules of the church. I still hear the booming voice of one preacher that instilled the wrath of God in me should I fail to keep the rules. With my concern about getting it right I was not in a big hurry to sign up on this type of Christian experience.<\/p>\n In my mid teens a man came on our drive way one day and tried to engage me in conversation. His opening line was something like, \u201cAre you born again?\u201d I knew what he meant and I knew that I had not made the kind if spiritual commitment he was asking about. I knew who the man was. He was an Amway distributor who used that as a way to get into homes to practice his brand of evangelism. As I heard the stories, this man had something of a shifty reputation. I saw him as hypocritical. I was not eager to sign up on that type of a Christian experience either.<\/p>\n In my early twenties I finally found an expression of Christian faith that appealed to me. Two girls in my home church, a few years younger than myself, had a significant experience of spiritual renewal. I don\u2019t know if it was because they were girls or if it was because of their faith experience, but there was something of what I saw in them that attracted me.<\/p>\n To make a long story short I signed up with Jesus, and like riding a bicycle I discovered a whole new world opened before me. I was pried out of those places where I was emotionally and spiritually stuck. I came to know a God of love and grace inviting me and enabling me to be a part of God\u2019s mission in the world. The spiritual journey that began then has taken me places I could not have imagined at the time. Even six months ago I did not imagine myself being at TUMC. But here I am, confident this is where God wants me for now. The further I continue on this journey, the less I want to go back to being stuck.<\/p>\n Today is the second Sunday in Lent. Our theme, \u201cOut of the Depths,\u201d invites us on a journey from blindness to sight; from death to life. Last Sunday Jesus\u2019 resistance to temptation in the wilderness stood in contrast to our need for restoration from sin. Today we advance on our journey. Note the two candles and the white drape continuing to push through the dark purple. God is calling us out of complacent acceptance of life as it into an embrace of new life.<\/p>\n Our scripture texts have introduced us to, Abram and Nicodemus, each called to take steps of faith into unknown territories. Abram was called to leave his home. Essentially all God said was, \u201cTrust me.\u201d Nicodemus\u2019 was, an emotional and spiritual journey, leaving the comfort of position and reputation. The journeys on which each was being called opened new doors of opportunity. Both, however, needed to take a first step for that door to open.<\/p>\n As I contemplate our own visioning journey here at TUMC, I wonder about steps God might be calling us to take?<\/p>\n On the surface Abram\u2019s journey was physical in nature; leaving his home for a place God would show him. Leaving the comfort of the familiar is never easy, but I imagine stepping into the promise of an undefined future to be emotionally more intense. How could he become the founder of a great nation of many people without land and an heir? In the face of uncertainty, Abram trusted God and stepped into the direction of God\u2019s promise. A whole new world opened before him.<\/p>\n It is interesting to consider the nature of Abram\u2019s journey. His was not a pilgrimage. A pilgrimage sets out for a new place, perhaps a holy place, to learn something new and then return, hopefully with some new insight. Abram\u2019s call was to permanent relocation. Many of our ancestors and some of us have left our places of origin to permanently settle in this country. Most recently we have been joined by friends from Uganda. During Lent we are being called to permanently relocate from places where we are emotionally and spiritual stuck to embrace new life of God made known in Jesus.<\/p>\n Nicodemus, he sensed something new in Jesus.\u00a0 Under the cover of darkness he came to Jesus with some questions. He was convinced that Jesus most be a teacher sent from God for who could do the things Jesus had done without God\u2019s presence. \u201cAh yes,\u201d Jesus answered,\u201d I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.\u201d\u00a0 Nicodemus was stumped. How could this be? He had never heard of being born from above.<\/p>\n The writer of John\u2019s gospel uses certain literary tools to present his point. For one, the writer employs various antitypes of newness. In each case the first symbol is not done away with by a second, but is given new meaning. Ancient biblical symbols are read with fresh eyes. We encounter that in the comparison between the lifting up of the serpent in the wilderness and reference to Jesus on the cross.<\/p>\n In Nicodemus the writer is adding to a dependable list of witnesses to set along side the signs and words of Jesus. So doing the writer challenges well intentioned ritual p Reflecting on ritual and purity I recalled my walk with Michael Hoffman from the Jerusalem synagogue I attended with him to his home for the Sabbath evening meal. As we walked through the upscale Jerusalem neighbourhood he told of the importance for him to own a home within walking distance of the synagogue so that he could maintain Sabbath laws. He told of there still being many baths for ritual cleansing within the walls of this modern Jerusalem community. When we arrived at the home I was invited to participate in the prayers in preparation for the Sabbath meal. After the meal the sixteen year old daughter brought out her guitar and we sang a wide assortment of songs. I was struck by own profound spiritual experience in what I might earlier have labeled as ritual. What I observed in the Hoffman family\u2019s weekly experience is what I experience annually on Christmas Eve.<\/p>\n As a Christian I was given the sacred opportunity to see elements of Jewish religious experience through fresh eyes. The writer of John has Jesus inviting Nicodemus to consider his Jewish experience through fresh eyes. Embracing the new life from above, would not have signified becoming a better person, but rather a new person. Nicodemus\u2019 questions about entering a second time into his mother\u2019s womb might not reflect being trapped in literalism as much as resistance to the kind of change Jesus\u2019 words implied.<\/p>\n On the one hand being born from above, or the more traditional translation, being born again, is as easy as leaving an old way of life and turning to a new way of life in Jesus. In the history of Christianity there are many stories of radical conversion. The Apostle Paul\u2019s Damascus road encounter with Jesus is one. Or the famed evangelist, Billy Sunday, who one day walked out of a Chicago bar and said to his teammates, \u201cI\u2019m through. I am going with Jesus.\u201d<\/p>\n On the other hand, the sophisticated word plays in this text show how difficult it is to make a formula by which one can embrace new life in Jesus. In a reflection on this text, Richard Lischer suggests:\u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cthe evangelist pulls meanings out of words like rabbits out of a silk hat: born from above may mean born again; the wind that blows where it wills may just be the Spirit wafting through the empty regions of our lives\u2026 The ambiguities of John\u2019s gospel warn us against trying to engineer our own rebirth with self-administered therapies.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n As much as I resonate with Lischer\u2019s caution \u201cagainst trying to engineer one\u2019s own rebirth,\u201d I have long been intrigued with the role of individual initiative as in the story of the serpent on a pole. The reference recalls a time in the wilderness during the Exodus from Egypt, when the people began to grumble against Moses and God. As punishment God sent poisonous snakes into the camp. People were bitten and died. The people begged Moses to plead their case before God. God agreed that maybe the judgment was a bit severe but rather than remove the snakes he offered another way. God instructed Moses to make a bronze image of a snake and mount it on a pole. Anyone who was bitten by a snake and came to look at the image on the pole would live. Looking at the snake for me is symbolic of looking honestly at our sin.<\/p>\n By contrast, in today\u2019s society I find that we are slow to take responsibility for our wrongs. We are quick to see ourselves as the victim. Granted, there are times when we are not at fault for wrongs in our lives. But sometimes we could avoid a lot of pain for ourselves and others if we simply said, \u201cYes, on this, I am responsible.\u201d Sometimes eating the proverbial crow is the best and in the long run least painful way to deal with our wrongs. I have even discovered that crow does not taste that bad once you spit out the feathers.<\/p>\n The writer of John likens Jesus on the cross to the serpent lifted up in the wilderness. The cross represents the great cost to God\u2019s own self for the new birth we know in Jesus. While indeed we cannot engineer our own rebirth, it is up to us to take that first step of self-initiative to look upon Jesus and embrace the new life of God.<\/p>\n Such new life cannot be experienced by reciting a magic formula. A young person was trying to make it in the political bureaucracy of Washington, D.C. One way he discovered was to get into an influential prayer group, the password being, \u201cBorn again.\u201d Rather than a formula to recite, embracing new birth is about stepping into the moving of God\u2019s spirit. That first step will embark us on a journey of new life with God that takes us from places where we may be stuck to places we cannot even imagine.<\/p>\n Conclusion:\u00a0\u00a0 <\/strong>Where do we find ourselves being stuck today? Like Abram and Nicodemus, on what new journeys might God be calling us? What are the issues in our individual and collective lives that we need to confront and own so that we can have the new life God offers in Christ?<\/p>\n Jesus\u2019 dialogue with Nicodemus creates a space for mystery and sacred experience. In this space God\u2019s Spirit stirs within us before we have words to name the stirring. Through water and the spirit God makes us clean and whole and delivers us from drowning in our own sin before we can swim a stroke. Remember that God always sees us through the eyes of what can be rather than what is. Embracing new life in Christ is a light that sometimes surprises. AMEN!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u00a0 Embracing New Life February 17, 2008 David Brubacher Text: Genesis 12:1-4a John 3:1-17 \u00a0 Introduction:\u00a0\u00a0 Learning to ride a bicycle was not easy for me. I was about eleven by the time I finally learned to ride and had my own bike. Part of the problem was that there were no bikes around our place other than the old one in the back of my grandfather\u2019s shed that had not been ridden for years. 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\nurity as the way to being a faithful Israelite.<\/p>\n